


Beyond repair

by MPhoenix7



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Hurt Tony Stark, I just love Tony so much why can't he be happy, M/M, Post-Break Up, Somebody should really stop me, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, the world doesn't deserve Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 09:16:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6977323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MPhoenix7/pseuds/MPhoenix7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark collected broken promises since he could remember. He just wasn’t the type of person people stayed for. That was who he was and that was okay, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond repair

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So, I have all these stony feels I just can't control, so I wrote this. Somebody should have stopped me, but they didn't, so here it is. I just wanted you all to know that I also think stucky is a great ship and all that, and if in any moment I make it look like it isn't, it wasn't my intention. Also, english isn't my first language and I don't have a beta reader, so please keep that in mind and let me know what you think :)

\- Go home, I’m busy – Tony said. His tone was not angry, not even sad. It was like he was giving a statement for the press, like it was subject he couldn’t care less about, and if Steve didn’t know him any better than to believe that, he could have gone home.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? He _knew_ Tony better than that.

He knew because after he joined the Avengers he got to know the real Tony Stark, the man behind the mask he put on for the world. Tony was a hero and that had nothing to do with his suit. He spent his life looking for ways to make up for what his weapons had done. He believed in people, even if that hurt him in the end. His friendship was sincere and although he could not stop himself from making jokes about Steve’s lack of familiarity with things in the 21st century, he always ended up patiently explaining whatever Steve wanted. He could talk for hours about the things he loved and if someone asked for his help, he would do everything in his power to give the person what they needed. The real Tony Stark was a man he started to admire and with whom him he fell in love.

-Tony, please, we need to talk.

-We really don’t, Cap- the same tone again. Steve took a deep breath and tried to relax. If they were still dating, they would begin an argument right there. There would be yelling, for sure, and things they’d later regret saying, but they would be okay in the end. They would always be okay in the end. That’s what Steve had always thought. Before everything changed.

Before _him_.

Steve had accepted the loss of his best friend. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, for sure, but as a soldier you have to accept that some things are not in your control and that sometimes you lose people. People you care about. People you _love_.

Steve also accepted that he loved his best friend in more than a brotherly way. He was in love with Bucky and he wasn’t supposed to be, so he kept that to himself. He went to war. He fell in love with Peggy. He dreamt about coming home, marrying his girl and having Bucky as his best man. He would have kids, a family. Everything was going to be the way it should. Bucky would be a best friend and only that. Even if sometimes he thought that Bucky had feelings for him too.

Of course life wouldn’t be that easy.

He lost Bucky and then he got iced and then he woke up seventy years later in a world he didn’t know. Without Bucky or Peggy or anyone he knew.

But he made it through. The avengers became his family and Tony gave him a home. Hell, Tony _was_ his home. Tony made him laugh and feel like he belonged there too. His arms were the only place the soldier would feel safe and the smell of grease mixed with expensive perfume that were _so Tony_ easily became Steve’s favorite smell in the entire world. Their relationship was never easy, they managed to fight over almost anything, and both were almost as stubborn as Thor when he was drunk.

Then he heard Bucky was alive.

Bucky, his friend. Bucky, his first love. Bucky, his companion through all his life. Bucky, who said that he would be with Steve ‘til the end of the line. _His Bucky._

Well, to say the truth, it wasn’t his Bucky. HYDRA had turned the man he knew into an unstoppable killing machine and tortured him for the last 70 years. But still he saved Steve, and if there was a chance his best friend was still there, Steve would try and bring him back. Bucky needed him, more than anyone ever could.

Tony understood that, he really did. But then Steve would spend more and more time with Bucky and less and less time with him. Steve wouldn’t come to his workshop anymore to carry him to bed because he passed out and fell asleep after working for 60 hours straight, Steve wouldn’t ever go out with him anymore, Steve barely acknowledged him at all, really. Tony was used to that. He wasn’t his parent’s first choice when he was a child, he wasn’t Pepper’s first choice when he grew up, and he could make a really long list of all his boyfriends and girlfriends and friends that just left him when they found something better. He never expected to be Steve’s first choice. Captain America was the hero of a nation, but more than that, Steve Rogers was an incredible man. Gentle, caring, honest, and way too good for a mess like the son of Howard Stark. _And Tony never stood a chance of not falling in love with him_ , even knowing that he shouldn’t.

With Steve, Tony was happier than he’d even been. He was a better man too, or at least it was what Pepper and Rhodey said. Tony would die before letting out something cliché like _“love changes a person_ ”, but he was living proof of that. He loved Steve more than he’d ever loved anyone or anything, even if he never got the nerves to say it.

And that was exactly why he couldn’t get in the way of Steve’s happiness.

He wanted to be with Steve, God, _he wanted that_. He wanted to go to sleep every night in the soldier’s arms and wake up every morning to see him in his bed. He wanted Steve’s hands and tongue, and also wanted to hear his laughter. He wanted to be the reason to his laughter, if possible. Tony knew he would only ever be happy with Steve, and he wanted that.

But _want_ and _need_ were different things, weren’t they?

Tony _wanted_ to be with Steve, but Tony _needed_ Steve to be happy. If Barnes was the man who could make Steve happy, so be it. Tony would back off. Steve’s happiness was way before his own in his list of priorities. So when Steve broke things off, he said he wished he and Barnes would be happy together. And he meant it.

It didn’t mean he wasn’t mad at Steve for letting him have hope for months that things would be back to normal. It didn’t mean that he wasn’t hurt by all the broken promises because, hell, if your childhood hero- that also happens to be Captain fucking America- makes you a promise, you believe it, you believe it with all your heart and soul, even if it’s something crazy like _“I won’t ever leave you, Tony”_. But Tony Stark collected broken promises since he could remember. He just wasn’t the type of person people stayed for. That was who he was and that was okay, really.

-Tony, you need to tell me what’s going on so I can help you.

-Nothing’s going on, Cap.

‘Cap’, that word again. Not ‘Steve’. _‘Cap’_. Not said in the friendly tone Tony used to say it either, but more like if he wanted to keep things distant. _Impersonal_. Steve spotted a bottle of whisky behind two machines he had no idea what were for, and he gritted his teeth.

\- If you don’t wanna talk to me as your friend, that’s fine. But I’m your team leader and…

\- Oh, you are? – The Stark sarcasm was there, Tony’s tone just like the one Howard used, but Steve realized now that Stark was drunk - God, if you don’t say that I’d _never_ have guessed it. Congrats, Cap! You know, you s…

\- Stop it, Tony! Stop the act. Stop pretending everything is fine. You’re drunk, for starts. I thought you didn’t drink anymore.

The brown eyes met the baby blue ones. If Steve weren’t so beautiful and kind and _perfect_ Tony’s life would be easier. But, to speak truth, his life would also be easier if Steve hadn’t ditched him like trash the moment he found someone else. He tried not to answer, he really did, but the Starks were never known for being a family with an exemplar impulse control, even more when booze was involved. So he just said:

\- And I thought you loved me. See, we were both wrong. It happens, doesn’t it?

Tony was _hurt_. Steve could see it in his eyes and in his body language, and he could hear it in his voice. He felt like shit for being the one who broke his heart. The fact that it was never his intention and that he couldn’t bear the thought of dating someone while he didn’t know his feelings for someone else didn’t matter much. Not right then. Neither did the fact the without him, Bucky was utterly and completely alone. Right then, mattered the fact that Tony didn’t deserve what he had done and knowing that he was responsible for making the man he loved suffer made him feel a worse person than any villain they’d ever fought.

\- Please, don’t say it like that. It’s not like _that_.

\- It’s _exactly_ like that, Rogers.

\- Tony, I care about you. I really do. I wouldn’t lie to you, especially about this. That’s why I’m here. You almost got yourself killed today for nothing and it scared the hell out of me.

The Avengers had had a mission that day. Doom was to blame, again, although Doom himself wasn’t there. It was supposed to be easy, but Iron Man had acted recklessly, going alone in some type of kamikaze mission instead of waiting for Steve. He nearly got himself killed. Steve didn’t like to think what could have happened if he hadn’t gotten there in time.

Stark started to laugh out loud, but without a single trace of happiness. He was laughing because everything sounded so bizarre given the situation he was in, that laughter was the only reaction his brain could think of. He thought Steve would start to laugh too, but apparently he was serious about what he was talking, which only made Tony laugh harder.

\- You _care_ about me? Really? Are you really going to say that? Because it means absolutely nothing, Steve. _Nothing_. Because I’ll still go to sleep alone and wake up wishing you were by my side. Because I’ll still have nightmares about losing you and wake up only to realize that I’ve already lost. Because there isn’t one single day that I don’t look for you at my side to tell you something funny just to remember that you aren’t there, _and will never be there again._ Because it makes me sick to think about you with somebody else. Not because of the sex, but because they’ll be the one sleeping in your chest at night and that place is mine, Steve. _Mine._ Because _every fucking time_ I think about Barnes wearing your shirt and hugging you while you make breakfast I wanna throw up. – there were tears on Tony’s eyes, but the last thing he wanted was to cry, so he just took a deep breath and continued – the thing is, Steve, that _you care about me_ , but I _love_ you. And now that I know how it is to be yours, I can’t go back to being just friends.

Steve didn’t know what to answer to that, and Tony had clearly said it all on an impulse, one he would probably be regretting already. However, he saw Tony talking a couple of deep breaths again before adding quietly:

\- If I had gotten myself killed today, I would have considered it one of the best things that happened in my life, since I appear to be too coward to take the arc reactor of my chest. Go home, Steve. I’m broken beyond repair you we both know that. There’s someone who needs and deserves you more – he stopped for a couple seconds before adding, just because he didn’t know how to deny Steve anything, he never knew- I promise I’ll be more careful, if it’ll make you relax.

Steve felt like he just got punched. Better yet, he felt like he just kicked a puppy that never asked him any more than a little bit of love that he refused to give.

\- Tony… I’m so sorry. I really am.

And Tony just looked at him, not even trying to hide how heartbroken he was. A tear fell of his eye when he said:

_\- Go home, Steve._

The moment Steve left, Tony started to cry.


End file.
